


Fanfiction - Aliens - Getting to Know You - PG-13

by Truth



Category: Aliens (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-02
Updated: 2007-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truth/pseuds/Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Aliens fic as per a <a href="http://file-five.livejournal.com/121418.html?thread=176458#t176458">meme</a> I posted a little while back  for <a href="http://www.insanejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=chickensarefast"><img/></a><a href="http://www.insanejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=chickensarefast"><b>chickensarefast</b></a>.  It falls before <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/146372">Single Entendre</a> and got a bit long, I'm afraid.</p><p>A/N:  Vasquez's past as well as her first initial and Hudson's are taken from various notes in the screenplay and a few seconds at the beginning of the film.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fanfiction - Aliens - Getting to Know You - PG-13

The recruitment station for the Colonial Marines in west LA was a shabby, run-down storefront located directly between the police station and the Community Welfare and Safeness office. It was grubby, just like the rest of the neighborhood and didn’t stand out much, even had its own, distinctive graffiti.

‘Join the Colonial Marines, See the Worlds’ it proclaimed, in soft, rounded letters. The slogan below it, in a dark brownish red thinly outlined in black, cut into the larger graffiti. ‘Get paid to kill – three squares and all the ammo you’ll ever need’.

The graffiti was no more a coincidence than the location and the carefully accumulated layer of grime on the windows. The office looked like it belonged there. Once you’d been past it a few times, from the cops to the parole officer and back again to the social worker, it became invisible – ‘cept for the graffiti, of course.

Ironically, shuffling into the interview room, trying not to trip on her hobbles and fighting a rising fury at how that fuck Madison had enjoyed tightening her cuffs till they cut, Vasquez’s first look at the man on the other side of the wide table took her straight back to that shitty, run-down street. She could almost smell the drunk who’d been sleeping it off in the nearest doorway and the stale vomit and cheap cigar smoke.

“J. Con Vasquez?” The man on the other side of the table was huge, and he wore his uniform like real clothing, not like the guards here at the prison. So damn proud of how they were better than you….

Vasquez jerked her attention to the man himself and nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.” Prodded into the chair, she grit her teeth as they fastened her hobble to the floor. You try to take someone’s eye out one time….

“Josephina, it says here… and the ‘Con’ is short for Concepción, I’m guessing.” He seemed to find that amusing, turning a page in the thin file that lay open on the table before him.

That got to her, and she glared at him. Some things weren’t funny and the last person to call her that had been her mother. “You didn’t have them drag me out here to make fun of my name, asshole. What the fuck do you want?”

He didn’t lose his look of amusement, not at all intimidated by the relatively petite teenager chained to the floor on the opposite side of the table. “You’re seventeen, Vasquez. You’ll be eighteen in three months and it looks like you’re due to spend the last four years of your sentence in a real prison, not this juvie kindergarten.”

“Yeah?” News to her and it caused a painful knot in her gut, but not entirely unexpected. She’d been granted an appeal, and her court appointed lawyer had filed it… but she hadn’t heard a thing since. “What’s it to you?”

“That’s the wrong question, Vasquez.” He flipped over another page in her file.

She slumped down sullenly in her chair. “What is, then?”

“The question should be ‘What’s in it for me’ but then, you already know what’s in store for you, don’t you, Vasquez?” He looked up to give her an unfriendly smile. “You weren’t the only survivor of that shoot-out, Vasquez, and I hear tell that you’ve got people waiting for inside.”

“I can take care of myself.” It was almost true, ‘cept that she knew Marietta’d had a year and a half to plan something, to get herself some allies and to be sure that no one would ever pin the death of a new transfer on her. In her place, Vasquez would’ve done the same.

“Is that how you want it to go?” He didn’t even sound all that interested in her answer.

“Hey, fuck you!” She shoved herself to her feet, although she couldn’t really go anywhere. She didn’t make the mistake of moving any further. The last time she’d tried that with the hobble on, she’d ended up on her face against the table and nearly lost a couple of teeth. “You think I wanted to be here? You think I got up in the morning and said, ‘Hey, let’s go watch all my friends die in a goddamn gunfight and, for afters, lets spend the next two years in fucking prison?”

“Six years,” he corrected her, without looking up from her file. “You have four to go, if you survive your introduction into a real prison – and the odds are against you.”

“Screw the fucking odds! I’m not gonna die in no stinking hole.” She brought both hands down flat on the table with a crack.

“That’s not up to you.” He closed her file and gave her a look that stopped her cold.

You could always tell a killer and Vasquez found herself again remembering the rundown recruiting center that she had seen every day for years, and the graffiti that somehow never faded or ended up covered by other marks. This man was a killer, and he wore it with the confident assurance of someone who knew what fear was – and who would never let it stop him.

She found herself sitting down almost involuntarily under the weight of that look, mouth closing abruptly.

“Do you know why I’m here, Vasquez?”

“No,” she admitted sullenly. At his sudden frown, she clenched her teeth. “No, sir.” Mother-fucking attitude….

“If I told you I could get you out of here tomorrow, would I have your interest?”

“I’d say you were full of shit.” Vasquez slumped down in her seat and gave him a mutinous look. “You just said - ”

“Tomorrow, Vasquez.”

She stared at him, suddenly unsure. He sounded so positive - and that alone was reason to mistrust him. “Nothing comes free. What’s in it for you?”

“Join the Colonial Marines,” he quoted with a grim smile. “See the worlds.”

She could see it again, the bold graffiti on the wall that she’d seen every day. “’Get paid to kill… three squares and all the ammo you’ll ever need’.”

“Ah, I see you’re familiar with your local recruiting center.” His brief, hard smile confirmed the suspicion that the graffiti hadn’t been vandalism at all. “Four years in prison… or ten years with the corps.”

“That’s six years more!” Her heart wasn’t really in the protest, however. Vasquez had been in juvenile detention since she was sixteen and two years inside, enlivened only by the occasional unenthusiastic visit from her lawyer and the sporadic letters from her mother exhorting her to turn to God, had eroded any real belief she’d ever had that life was fair.

This wasn’t fair, it was a fucking miracle.

“Are you really going to complain?” he asked her dryly. He withdrew a sheaf of papers from the folder and slid them across the table to her. “Enlistment papers. Read them over. I’m going for some coffee and a smoke. I’ll be back in ten minutes, Vasquez, and I’ll take your answer then.”

**

Billy Hudson was the youngest of four, born to an ex-marine with only one arm and one eye. The man turned farmer and got married right after his discharge and all of his sons were raised to revere God, family and the Marine Corps.

Not necessarily in that order.

As youngest, little Billy Hudson was expected to stay home, run the farm and be his parent’s loyal farmhand until he inherited the place himself. With three older brothers in the Marines, two killed in action and leaving behind little but photographs and a rack of medals that his parents kept in the front parlor and spoke of proudly, it was probably inevitable that, at age 18, Billy ran away from home, joined the Colonial Marines and never looked back.

Hudson was a farm boy to his bones and, more obviously, the often ignored youngest child in a loud, boisterous family. Any attention was good attention and if, among his fellow marines, said attention was often demonstrated through violence and death threats, it was a good thing that Hudson also possessed a healthy sense of humor to offset his less healthy ideas of entertainment.

“HUDSON!”

“I had nothing to do with whatever it was, Sergeant!”

The amazing part was that Hudson had yet to answer that way at roll call, considering that the response had become almost automatic.

“This time, maybe.” Corporal Hicks retorted lazily, looking up from the dog-eared novel he’d been reading, feet up on one end of the beaten-up table in the shared mess.

“Stow it, Corporal.” Master Sergeant Apone had a cigar between his teeth - which were exposed in a somewhat disturbing smile. He reached out to take possession of the mug of hot coffee that Hudson had just poured himself. “The two of you worthless bums are going to hook up with Crowe and go down to the depot. The fresh meat is arriving today.”

“Aw Sarge, you couldn’t send Dietrich? I’ve got maintenance to take care of!”

“The same maintenance that made you late to roll call yesterday?” Apone gave him a skeptical look. “Get the lead out, Hudson. There’s gonna be a lot of luggage to carry.”

That had Hicks sitting up straight, a look of interest on his face. “You got us the smart guns?”

Apone’s smile became more genuine. “Two smart guns, complete with operators – fresh out of basic training.”

“So what’s wrong with them?” Hudson was reaching for another mug, and Apone smacked his fingers. “Hey!”

“What, you don’t think I could get anyone decent to sign up in an outfit that contains the likes of you? You might have a point.” Apone jerked his thumb toward the door. “I’m not hearing any footsteps….”

“Right, Sarge.” With a sigh, Hudson rose to his feet, sparing a last, longing look back at his coffee.

“On our way, Sarge.”

**

“Twelve.”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen?” Vasquez snorted, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her spread knees as she stared across the narrow transport at Drake. “Please. Thirteen’s too much.”

Drake gave her a lazy smile. “Fourteen at the least.” He said no more and didn’t have to. He and Vasquez had been partners for almost six weeks – fresh out of the same situation, juvenile detention about to become something more. They’d sized each other up… and that’d been the end of that. They’d been shoulder to shoulder or back to back ever since without a word between them – to the point where their DI had declared them a team and recommended they remain as such.

She glared at him and did a few mental calculations. “Thirteen,” she admitted grudgingly.

Drake’s smile didn’t fade, eyes closing as he leaned back against the wall of the transport, stretching out his legs to rest them on the narrow bench beside his partner. Vasquez wasn’t about to admit defeat, however. Still glaring, she was on her feet the moment the slightly dissonant chime that announced their landing. “Thirteen,” she repeated stubbornly.

By the time Drake roused himself and wandered out onto the platform, Vasquez had their gear almost completely unloaded – as was only fair. Drake had loaded most of it in the first place. He waited until she was through before glancing at the battered clock mounted to one side of the platform. She glared at him and hauled the last of the heavy crates to one side.

Sixteen minutes after their arrival a pair of somewhat ragtag marines arrived on the platform and headed directly for them – one with a giant grin, the other with a somewhat laconic nod.

Drake, eyes closed and leaning against the cases, held out a hand and Vasquez, with a muttered curse, slapped several bills into it. “Corporal,” she growled, kicking at Drake’s foot as she greeted Hicks.

“Corporal,” Drake echoed, rising to his feet as the money disappeared. “Drake. This’ Vasquez.”

“What he means to say,” Vasquez’s heel coming down on the bridge of Drake’s foot as she stepped forward, “is that we’re your new smart-gunners.”

“Hey, that’s all right, we… OW!” Hudson shut up abruptly, hopping up and down as Hicks’ foot came down similarly on his own foot.

“Vasquez, Drake.” Hicks nodded to them both. “I’m Hicks and this is Private Hudson. We’ve got a transport outside to take your gear back to quarters. Hudson’ll help you load it up.”

“Like fun I will,” was the muttered retort, followed immediately by another, indignant ‘ow’.

Drake, silent despite Vasquez’s tread upon his foot, gave Hicks the faintest flash of a smile. “Pleasure, Corporal.”

Vasquez gave Hudson a faint sneer. “Pleasure,” she echoed doubtfully.

Undeterred, still clutching at his shin, Hudson gave her a hopeful leer.

She rolled her eyes and hefted the nearest heavy case. “After you,” she invited him.

Eyeing the large case and the relatively petite – if well muscled – Vasquez, Hudson sighed. “Right….”

**

“I just… ow, damn it!”

“Sixteen months, Hudson.” Frost pressed down harder on the cold pack along Hudson’s jaw, effectively muffling the curses. “That’s… how many weeks?”

“Sixty… four?” Hicks had a cigarette in his mouth, both feet on the table of the small mess, and a faint smile on his face.

“Sixty four weeks,” Frost agreed, not caring if the answer was right or not. He gave Hudson a disgusted look. “You give it a try once a week, every week, and every week, she punches you out. You lost two teeth last time.”

“Good thing we were still on-base.” Ferro smirked at him from across the table, chin propped up in one hand as she watched the ritual patching up with amusement. “That dentist did a pretty good job.”

“Still got his shit-eatin’ grin, anyway.” Drake was at the far end of the table, carefully assembling a set of highly explosive and completely illegal loads for his weapon.

Hudson’s response was both highly vulgar and almost entirely incoherent, thanks to Frost’s ruthless ‘first aid’. The other marine had lost the weekly gamble as to where and when Hudson would get himself slugged and thus was responsible for patching up his luckless comrade.

“She must like you, Hudson,” was Ferro’s sly observation. She tossed a fresh cold pack to Frost just in time – the new one being set firmly across Hudson’s mouth.

This was about as much as the easy-going Hudson was willing to take, and he smacked Frost’s hands away, sending both ice packs sliding to the floor and revealing a pair of welting bruises. “Y’all are havin’ just a little too much fun at my expense,” he snarled – an explosion that would’ve been far more exciting if he hadn’t been left with a minor lisp thanks to the swelling of his jaw. “I don’t deserve havin’ my personal life made into a… a game by you bunch of….”

“Language, Hudson.” Hicks was trying not to laugh and losing the battle.

“She likes him.”

Ferro’s laughter cut off like a switch and even Frost stared at Drake in disbelief. Hudson shut off mid-word, one hand on his aching jaw. “She… what?”

Drake didn’t even look up, placing another round carefully into the box to one side of the loading assembly he was working with. “You asked her more than once - and you’ve still got your balls.”

**

“I’m going to kill you, Drake.”

Drake didn’t look very worried, probably because he was the one with the enormous gun and Vasquez was fresh out of the shower, wearing nothing but a towel. He cocked an eyebrow, rocked back on his heels and gave her a skeptical look.

“Don’t you give me that, you bastard!” Vasquez leaned in, eyes narrowed. “I got Hudson breathing down my goddamn neck and I had everything under control until someone opened his damn mouth. Damn you, Drake. I’m gonna have to castrate him now.”

Drake shrugged, causing the gun assembly to move and Vasquez to take a quick step to the side.

“Oh, I know who told him to keep pushing his luck,” Vasquez snapped, re-securing her towel. “You’ll get yours, Drake. Don’t doubt it.”

With a scar-quirked smirk, Drake headed off to the firing range, leaving a fuming Vasquez in his wake.

**

“Look, Hudson, let me break this down for you in terms you’ll understand, okay?”

Hudson gave a strangled grunt, really the only sound he was currently capable of. After sucker-punching him and knocking the wind out of him, Vasquez had knocked him over and was currently sitting on the small of his back. She had firm possession of both of Hudson’s hands and held them twisted up between his shoulder-blades.

“You are one of my team – a marine, a member of my family.” Vasquez gave the captured hands a firm tug, to be certain that she had his attention.

“Uuuung!” Hudson held as still as possible as pain shot down his arms. “Family, I got it!”

“This means,” Vasquez continued thoughtfully, “that I can’t actually kill you. And if I maim you, just a little, I’ll still do time in the stockade and I’ve been inside. You’re not worth going through that again, no matter how annoying you are.”

Hudson was halfway into a goofily relieved smile when she tugged again. “Aaaah!!”

“So, we have a problem.” She leaned forward, raising her voice. “You see what I mean?”

“Problem, yes, I see that!”

Vasquez sighed. “The way I see it, we have two options. One is that you stop trying to grab my ass once a week and you get to keep your hands.”

“I’m in favor, oh god would you stop that, in favor of that.”

“I thought you’d say that.” Vasquez loosened her grip, waiting until she felt Hudson tense, and tugged again. Hudson was no slouch at in-fighting, but unlike Vasquez and Drake, Frost and Hicks, he didn’t regard the other marines as a threat – he didn’t really believe that something might happen where they’d turn on him. It was almost cute, in the way large, ugly puppies were cute, and it always gave her, with her slighter build, the advantage. “Option two is far less friendly.”

“Friendly is good,” Hudson rasped. “God, Vasquez, ease up.”

“This is friendly,” she told him flatly. “Keep your hands to yourself, Hudson, or I’ll remove them… and as long as I’ll be going to the stockade anyway, I’ll be taking a slightly more personal bit of flesh – as a souvenir.”

Hudson sighed, resignation taking the tension out of his muscles. With an irritated sigh, Vasquez released him. “I’m glad we’ve reached this understanding, Hudson.” Getting up, she stalked off, flipping a one-fingered salute to Hicks, who was leaning in the doorway of the gym, watching the entire thing.

“She gone?”

“Yeah.” Hicks shook his head as Hudson turned over painfully, revealing a wide, bright grin.

“She does like me.”

Hicks laughed softly. “If that’s her liking you, you’re not going survive anything more intimate.”

“Jealousy,” Hudson told him loftily, gingerly working his arms, “is an ugly thing.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Hudson.”

**

“… it’s been three weeks. Two more days and Drake is going to own us. Whose idea was this stupid pool, anyway?” Ferro waved her mug of coffee, narrowly missing dousing Spunkmeyer with the contents.

“Guess.” Frost cast an accusing look across the mess at where Drake was stretched out with a napkin over his face, apparently asleep. “Should’ve known he’d cheat.”

“Never bet with a man with inside information,” Hicks advised him, hiding a faint smile behind his own mug.

“Meaning that you’re not risking any of your money on this?” Ferro made a face at him. “Should’ve known.”

“What’s Hudson up to, that’s what I want to know,” was Spunkmeyer’s contribution. “He hasn’t gone this long without getting at least a black eye since Vasquez was assigned here.”

“Maybe he’s finally wised up?” This contribution from their latest transfer, Crowe. “I mean… he spent over a year getting beaten up once a week – sooner or later, he has to give it up, right?”

A chorus of derisive laughter answered this question as even Drake stirred himself enough to sit up and give the man a twisted smile. Once the amusement had died down somewhat, Hicks raised his coffee to Crowe. “Hudson doesn’t know how to give up.” His smile almost matched Drake’s. “It’s part of his charm.”

“Maybe he’s up to something?” That was Frost’s somewhat doubtful contribution and, after a moment’s thought, the entire room burst into laughter.

“Hey, what’re y’all laughing about?” Hudson looked somewhat puzzled as he stuck his head around the door to peer into the mess. “Can’t be that funny, can it?”

The resultant chorus of laughter completely drowned him out, leaving him gesturing helplessly. “What? What?”

**

Awww, c’mon, Vasquez.”

Vasquez glanced up from her lunch with a sneer. “You ain’t got what it takes, Hudson.”

Catcalls from Frost and Drake had Hudson hunching his shoulders defensively. “It’s not fair,” he complained. “You mess up one time and you’d think it was the only thing you’d ever done.”

“It is the only thing you’ve ever done,” Drake told him, gathering his tray and rising from the table.

[ "Oh, now that's harsh." ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/146372)


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